A couple months ago, while at DRNK Coffee and Tea / Qwench Juice Bar (one of mine and my boyfriend’s favorite cafes local in our home in Sterling, Virginia) I stumbled across some products by Bakefully Yours. Bakefully Yours is a local bakery in Sterling, Virginia (YAY Sterling!) and all of their products fall into one or multiple categories of being gluten free, paleo, and vegan. As a vegan myself, I was SO excited to have discovered them in the cafe and have a local bakery in my area that was so inclusive for those like myself with special dietary needs and preferences because sometimes finding desserts like these are a tough.

As a wedding photographer, I have seen a trend over the past couple years that a lot of couples are either backing away from the traditional wedding cake as a dessert or are including multiple options other than a cake for their guests. I have seen couples do candied apples, pies, donuts, candy bars, milk shots and cookies, brownies, and cupcakes in place of or along side cakes. I personally love this because to me this makes desserts more fun cause I think we can all agree that cake gets a bit old sometimes! Also, a couple of the weddings I shot have had options for those with special dietary needs and preferences. I thought this was so thoughtful towards guests and it got me to thinking about how I would like to see more inclusive food choices like this at more weddings. I decided to reach out to Sarah Seligman, the owner of Bakefully Yours to learn more about their products and how I could help promote them to couples looking for inclusive dessert options at their weddings!

First a little bit about Bakefully Yours and Sarah’s story…..

Sarah has always loved baking since she was a young girl. After deciding not to pursue a career in criminal justice and some time working at a butcher’s shop, she decided to pursue her dream of opening up a bakery. As someone who has been gluten free and paleo herself for the past 5 years, she wanted to provide desserts for otherss like her looking for healthier variations of those desserts that they could enjoy. The bakery is all woman run and aside from finding their products at their home base in Sterling, you can find them at multiple retail locations including local Mom’s Organic stores, Whole Foods locations, and more.

The bakery offers 4 main products that include:

Coconut Brittle (Vegan and gluten free with made with 3 organic ingredients)

As someone who LOVES to cook but is not too experienced with baking (especially baking healthier and for paleo, gluten free, and vegan diets) I was really curious about how Sarah and her team went about baking their products. Sarah’s bakery does not use artificial flavors, colors or high fructose corn syrup. They stick to healthier and natural sweeteners such as organic coconut sugar, unsweet applesauce, vanilla extract, and organic maple syrup. For binders for their vegan products, instead of eggs they use coconut oil. Lastly to keep everything gluten free, they avoid regular flour and bake with almond flour, tapioca starch, and cassava (yuca) flour.

From a personal standpoint, I was very impressed and satisfied with all of the products from Bakefully Yours that I have had the chance to try. My personal favorite was the chai spice cake. Prior to going vegan, chai lattes were one of my favorite cafe drinks. Ever since I went vegan, its been challenging to find vegan chai lattes since the powder for them typically has dairy products in it. This cake tasted like I was in fact eating a chai latte instead of drinking it which was pretty awesome!

For couples interested in learning more about Bakefully Yours and how you can get your hands on some of their delicious and inclusive desserts for your upcoming wedding or if you just are craving a healthy but nevertheless delicious dessert, please click here or your can contact them directly at 540-229-6232.

Are you looking for wedding photographer to capture your upcoming authentic celebration of love and partnership? Brooke is a fine art / documentary wedding photographer serving the Washington DC Metropolitan area and beyond. Click here to chat with Brooke Silverman Photography about your upcoming wedding!